St. Francis grows while many Catholic schools struggle

Saturday

Jan 24, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Between classes, the hallways are a sea of blue and white as students wearing the school uniform polo shirts head from classroom to classroom.

Crucifixes hang above the doorways in the classrooms of St. Francis Catholic High School.Every Wednesday morning, students gather in the gym for Mass. Between classes, the hallways are a sea of blue and white as students wearing the school uniform polo shirts head from classroom to classroom. A statue of the school's patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, stands outside the chapel.In many ways, St. Francis looks like any other Catholic high school. But as Catholic Schools Week 2009 starts Sunday, and the nation's Catholic educators take stock of their schools' viability, St. Francis is in an enviable position: continuing to grow and thrive as many others close or consolidate.To this point, the school has made it through the recession unscathed, with only limited financial support - $300,000 annually - from the parent Diocese of St. Augustine."In the middle of everything that's going on, we've been truly blessed," said principal Ernie Herrington.In 2004, St. Francis began modestly with 61 freshmen in the classrooms of Holy Faith parish's church hall. The associate pastor's office served as a computer lab.After a multimillion-dollar complex opened in January 2008 near the interchange of I-75 and NW 39th Avenue, the school has capacity for 475 students and a current enrollment of 254.Construction plans include a "cafetorium" - a shared cafeteria and performing arts facility - and additional classrooms that will push the student capacity beyond 600.Around the country, many Catholic schools wish for the type of success St. Francis has seen.National Catholic Educational Association statistics show enrollment in K-12 Catholic schools dropped by approximately 400,000 students from the 1997-98 school year to last school year. Approximately 900 schools have closed during that 10-year span.

Elementary schools, which vastly outnumber Catholic high schools, took the biggest hit, NCEA spokesman Brian Gray said.Nationwide, from 2000 to last year, many Catholic high schools have opened and closed. In all, the total number dropped by eight."In areas like yours, schools are still doing well," Gray said. "Florida, the Southwest, California, where there's population growth, there's new high schools going up. The urban areas, they're endangered."The New York Times reported in January that the archdioceses of Chicago and Washingon,<0x000A>D.C., as well as the Brooklyn diocese, were all closing schools in the face of dropping enrollments. In Florida's most urbanized area, Miami, schools are also being shuttered, the Miami Herald recently reported."Generally speaking, the suburban schools are doing better in terms of enrollment," said Rex Whisman, a Denver-based consultant who works with Catholic schools. "They have larger population areas to draw from and in many cases the ability to pay the tuition is there. Some of the demographic situations in the inner cities make it more difficult for those families to pay."Whisman, from the BrandED Consulting Group, said successful Catholic schools need a long-term sustainability plan and a business model that promotes their values: good student academic performance, a safe and nurturing school environment and faith formation.The successful school also has to recruit a strong network of donors and volunteers, Whisman said.St. Francis would appear to meet the model for success. Sherry Houston, the school's development director, noted that all 41 seniors in last year's first graduating class went on to college.Sierra O'Neill, 18, a senior, said she transferred into the school for the college prep."The classes were more difficult, but my grades went up," she said. "The teachers kept me after school and made me learn the right way to study."

While many Catholic schools built on the traditional model of a parish school run by a priest are struggling, St. Francis draws from the region: four parishes in the Gainesville area, one in Alachua, the Epiphany Catholic School in Lake City and St. William Catholic Church in Keystone Heights, Houston said.Twenty-five percent of the students are non-Catholic. Twenty-eight percent receive some form of tuition assistance, Herrington said.The majority of the families are paying full tuition - $6,205 for Catholic students and $8,462 for non-Catholics - for the upcoming 2009-10 school year.That tuition and related student fees generated more than $1.3 million in 2007-08 and covered the majority of the school's expenses.In January 2007, St. Francis needed to raise more than $1.2 million to fund its phase II expansion. University of Florida men's basketball coach Billy Donovan, whose son attends St. Francis, enlisted the help of UF football coach Urban Meyer and musical group Sister Hazel for a successful fundraiser and the school had the expansion money.While those high-profile connections no doubt help, parents of students and members of several area Knights of Columbus councils spend months working behind the scenes to organize and publicize fundraisers.Larry Clark, a member of the Knights of Columbus at Holy Faith, said its first dinner for the school's tuition assistance fund brought in $12,000 five years ago. Last September, in the middle of a recession, the dinner brought in more than $100,000. That included gifts of $25,000 each by two donors who prefer to remain anonymous, Clark said."Many of these people who support us are products of Catholic school education," Herrington said. "As a new school, we lack our own alumni network. They are alumni from other Catholic schools who know the importance of building this tradition."A strong parent volunteer force has also helped build the school "from the baseboards up," as Jane Snyder, the parent of a St. Francis student, said."That's basically how we got our athletic fields built, parents moving dirt and throwing sod," said teacher and volunteer coach David Fallo.

Parents mow the athletic fields and put down the chalk lines before games. If the score-keeping computer breaks before a girl's basketball game, the parent who volunteers as a scorekeeper knows how to fix it."It's just doing whatever needs to be done," said Ginger Sault, whose son is a senior.Like the students and parents, teachers like Matt DeSalvo also put in extra time. In addition to his job as a computer technology teacher, DeSalvo fixes the school's computers and updates its Web site.In the past, Catholic schools relied heavily on priests and nuns as teachers, a move that kept salary expenses low. St. Francis has two nuns and no priests on faculty.But, just as parents are willing to pay thousands a year for a Catholic education, something public schools offer for free, some teachers, particularly those who attended Catholic schools, are willing to work for less pay.DeSalvo, 25, graduated from Bishop Kenny High in Jacksonville and knew he wanted to return to a Catholic high school as a teacher."I appreciated the learning environment I grew up in," he said.

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